Sometimes I scroll back through my Facebook newsfeed.  Back to January 2013.  I don't know why I do other than perhaps a need to relive the reality and remember how close we came to losing our little girl.

I suppose her diagnosis started a good ten days or so before her actual diagnosis.  We had the flu, all of us.  I don't remember who had it first but I remember Feens suffered the longest.  Maybe five days with high fever and general 'this sucks' attitude.  Lots of nursing, lots of sleeping.  Our oldest daughter had it also, but her symptoms weren't nearly as drawn out as Feens' were.  Anton and I both suffered for a day, day and a half with fever and general 'this sucks' attitude and after some Elderberry syrup, Oscillo and extra Vitamin C and zinc, we were feeling better quickly.   Gia was better within two or three days but Feens just stayed sick.  It was Sunday morning when she woke up with this strange deep, bronchial breathing.  Not one to rush my kid to the ER for every little thing, I decided to wait it out, Dr. Google a bit, ask Facebook and go from there.  By evening, I was stressed.  I wondered if she was getting enough oxygen.  Off to the ER we go.  This is New Years Eve EVE, mind you, so waiting for the pediatrician to open would take another two days.  I wasn't sure we had two days.

The ER was a bust.  The first doctor swabbed her ears out, hitting her (then unknown) infected ear drum making her scream like someone was removing her finger nails with pliers.  I said 'no, no, we're done with that now.'  Another doctor came in later asking for a urine sample and decided we were going to treat with antibiotics for a UTI (one of our chief complaints was frequent urination including relapsing into having accidents - Feens had been potty trained well over a year by this point) and "possible pneumonia."  Fine.  We fill the prescription immediately and start that night.  The ER physicians assured me she'd be feeling better in 24 hours. 

New Years Eve and two or three doses of antibiotics later, Feens is still lethargic, breathing in this weird, deep, bronchial way, peeing the ped, crying a lot, sleeping even more, not wanting to eat, drinking a ton.  But we know we've got to give the antibiotics 24 hours....

Let it be known that, like, all of my mommy red flags were a blazing at this point, but I tried to relax and trust these stupid physicians.

We go to my mom's for NYE get-together and Feens has a few bites of peanut butter sandwich and chocolate milk.  She sleeps.  She wets my mom's couch.  She's still got her smoker's lung breathing.

New Year's Day.   All the same symptoms still plus she's dizzy.  She falls twice, hits her head.  She throws up.  Her fever is back.  After two days of antibiotics, her fever comes back after four days?  What the...??  I call the pediatrician's emergency line and talk to a nurse who tells me to take her back to the ER.  So we go.

This visit was even worse.  The two physicians I saw completely dismissed all of Athena's symptoms with a shrug, a pat on my leg and a "she just has a bad cold" justification.  Her pulse ox came back perfect every time despite the concerning breathing.  I was livid.  But we left.  What choice did I have?  I sure as shit didn't know what was going on with her....and these are the med school professionals, right?  RIGHT?

I slept with her that night.  I was terrified she'd stop breathing in the middle of the night.  She wet herself, she didn't want to eat, she continued the smoker's breathing which sounded like she'd just run 26 miles in the middle of dusty China.  I called the pediatrician and made an appointment for Thursday at 1:30pm.  I had to work Wednesday and I was really trying to believe she'd be okay.  At this point we were at four full days of antibiotics but all the same symptoms plus a fever.

Somehow we get through Wednesday.  I remember she ate a little more than previous days and seemed slightly chipper.  I took it as a good sign.

Thursday, I pick up my emaciated child, all 27 pounds of her (she was around 35 pounds before Christmas) and her blanket and I carry her from the car to the pediatrician's office.  Our wonderful, life-saving, not shit-taker pediatrician diagnosed her in seconds.

"Has anyone tested her for diabetes?"

Huh?

"Can she pee in a cup?" she asks me as I'm holding my lifeless child who can't even nurse at this point.  She is barely conscious.

"Yes, she can pee" I say with tears in my eyes.

Pee comes back spilling glucose and ketones - large ketones.

"We want to check her blood sugar" she says.

The nurse comes in with a little meter and pricks Athena's finger.  I remember the nurse saying "oh wow, that's really high..."   The number was 590.

I can hear the pediatrician berating the ER department at the Children's Hospital where I'd spent two nights of the previous four and telling the Endocrinology team they were sending over a dying child.  Maybe she didn't use the word 'dying' but I remember my heart landing in my gut like a piano hits the ground from 25 stories above.  There are no words.  I held my lifeless kid and just could not think for a second what was going to happen one, two, ten seconds from that moment.

She asked about an ambulance.  "No, I can take her" I say....so we go.  I call Anton, let him know.

We go BACK to the same ER but this time we are rushed through triage and the double doors fly open with no less than four medical officials (doctors, nurses?) standing in the door calling her name.  We won't be visiting the small ER rooms today, though.  We are in the trauma room.  There are posters with instructions on how to resuscitate the dying baby/toddler/child.  There is life-saving equipment all around me.  I am being asked to stand aside whilst doctors start IVs and heart monitors and all sorts of beeping equipment.  There is an oxygen mask and a blood pressure cuff and a little toe clamp.  My baby isn't moving.  She is breathing, but she is near comatose.  Her first blood sugars come back in the 600s.  All the rushing and talking quickly and phone calls and yelling send me into a spiral.  Anton is on his way.  I'm trying not to cry.  Someone comes in and asks me what I know about Type 1 diabetes and diabetic ketoacidosis to which I reply "nothing."  The woman tells me it's okay, they will teach me.  Part of her hospital stay will be about teaching me how to take care of her.  "Will she get better?" I ask...."yes" they say...."but there is no cure" they follow with.

More piano crashing from 25 stories above.

Child Life comes in with a stinky but cute pig (they put a Scentsy block in there, gross) and I put it by her.   She is not awake but she is conscious.  They say they'll come see us when we are settled in our regular room.  Tonight she will be in the PICU while they get her stable.

Pediatric Intensive Care.  Intensive Care.  Intensive.  It's like this bullet that ricochets off the walls around you and your eyes can't focus on its direction....

The PICU had its pitfalls.  The nurses were using incorrect lancets on her fingers so when we were able to go home two days later, we did so with ten bruised fingers.  Turns out they were using infant heel lancets and the head of the PICU called me personally to apologize for that.  Athena's metabolic screen normalized overnight.  She was moved to a regular room though she was officially diagnosed with Influenza A in all of this so there was some confusion as to where we would stay on the floor.  We finally settled into a room.  Athena was conscious and alert now and wanting to eat.  She came off the IV insulin and glucose and we gave her her very first injection on January 5th, 2013.  She took it like a champ.

We went home early January 6th and since then, we've educated ourselves a great deal and we are about to participate in our very first JDRF walk for fundraising toward finding a cure for Type 1 diabetes.  Athena is on an insulin pump now along with a continuous glucose monitor which is a level of technology I never knew existed before January 3rd, 2013.  I am very thankful I can keep my daughter alive with the help of these wonderful technological advancements.